Protestant militant shot dead in Belfast

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A suspected member of an outlawed anti-Catholic gang was shot dead as he drove to work in Belfast yesterday.

A lone gunman ambushed Brian Stewart, 34, as he was driving to the plumbing company where he worked in Protestant east Belfast.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but police said one possible motive was feuding between extremist paramilitary groups over the proceeds of crime.

"It's a heinous crime," said police Detective Chief Superintendent Phil Wright, "but there are witnesses out there who can come forward and help us find who did this."

Police said the victim had links to the outlawed Loyalist Volunteer Force, which has periodically clashed with two larger illegal gangs in the area, the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force.

The LVF in particular has tried to expand its drug-dealing empire into east Belfast, where the UVF and UDA have protected their own racketeering turf for decades. The LVF was founded in 1996 by disgruntled UVF members in Portadown, a predominantly Protestant town south-west of Belfast.

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So-called "loyalist" gangs - so named because they claim loyalty to Northern Ireland's status as British territory - have been responsible for the bulk of violence committed since 1998, when local leaders achieved the Good Friday peace accord.

That landmark pact, which was founded in part on 1994 ceasefires by the major loyalist gangs and the outlawed Irish Republican Army, sought to coax each armed group to abandon violence in favour of politics.

But whereas the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party has grown to become the largest in Irish Catholic areas, the loyalist groups have proved deeply unpopular among Protestant voters and play no meaningful role in ongoing negotiations. Since 2000, feuds within loyalist circles driven by arguments over turf and money have claimed more than a dozen lives in Belfast.